Booking.com takes over hotel bookings on New York tourism website

Powered by Booking.com

The arch nemesis of Expedia is making new friends in the USA, and one of them happens to be none other than New York City.  Booking.com has kicked off an affiliate partnership deal with nycgo.com, the city's official tourism website, to power hotel bookings in New York.

American OTAs must be feeling the sting as the Amsterdam based Booking.com increasingly stomps deeper into American home turf.  Priceline group is already on top of the leader boards in Asia and Europe, according to PhoCusWright.

It appears the NYC site was previously powered by Travelocity, and I suspect that part of the decision to switch to Booking.com was the number of localized sites it has around the world.  Currently Booking.com supports over 40 languages.  This potentially allows NYC to tap into large international markets that are more likely to visit the tourism site compared to domestic travelers already familiar with NYC.

New York is one of the most popular tourism destinations in the United States, and this new partnership may be the tipping point for additional American tourism organizations to partner with Booking.com and appeal to a more international audience.  A quick search also shows San Francisco's tourism site being powered by Booking.com.

From a supply perspective, Booking.com offers 573 properties while Expedia and Orbitz have 508 and 447 properties respectively.